His head hit the floorboards and he closed his eyes. The heroin was starting to kick in now, a pleasant numbness creeping up from his toes to his brain. His senses had been in riot all afternoon, but the opiate was finally working its magic and Robert Stonehill was once more at peace.
He had dumped the stolen car near King’s Cross, then hurried back to the squat. There was no question of him returning to the hospice and, besides, he needed time to think. He’d no idea how she’d made the connection, but Brooks had blown his cover and he was now a man on the run. He hadn’t seen anything on the local news, which was one small mercy, and his best hope was that Brooks was acting alone. If so, she would have trouble mobilizing the local police. The last thing he needed now was the Met bearing down on him, when his final victory was so close.
He had been so careful – leaving Southampton immediately after Helen’s arrest and creating new identities for himself in London. He had even sought out this pitiful squat in Archway, full of dropouts, druggies and vagrants, as a way of remaining off the radar. He loathed the people he shared this crumbling space with – they were all just marking time until their deaths – but they did occasionally have their uses. The heroin he had just purchased was third rate, but it was having the required effect.
He kept his eyes clamped shut and tried to block out the aged beat box pumping out reggae – God, how he loathed reggae – as he desperately needed to sleep. But, try as he might, he couldn’t switch off. This morning, everything had been fine, now everything was up in the air, the threat of capture a real possibility.
What should he do? Helen’s trial was still a couple of months away. Should he just hunker down and sit it out? He dismissed this notion instantly – he would go crazy in this squat and, besides, he still had to live. Had Brooks worked out how he’d been supporting himself? It was a fair bet that she had, given her appearance at the hospice. He’d have to change tack, perhaps get a menial job somewhere that he could lift credit card details. It would have to be away from North London and it would have to pay – he refused to live like the animals around him and anyway his drug habit was becoming ever more expensive.
It was hard to know what to do for the best or what the next few weeks might hold, but one thing was not in doubt. He would never give up, nor would he relent in his bid to destroy Helen Grace. And if Brooks – or anyone else – smoked him out, he would fight them tooth and claw.
Whatever life might throw at him, he would see this through to the bitter end.